Student Debt and the Class of 2008

December 30, 2009

College seniors who graduated in 2008 carried record amounts of student debt while being faced with soaring unemployment rates, according to a new report from the . The report, (12 pages, PDF), found that 2008 graduates carried an average of $23,200 in student loan debt, while unemployment for college graduates aged 20-11 climbed from an already challenging 7.6 percent in the third quarter of 2008 to 10.6 percent in 2009 — the highest third-quarter rate for this cohort during the decade. Students in the District of Columbia and Iowa graduated with the highest average debt levels — $29,793 and $28,174, respectively — while students in Utah had the lowest average debt at $13,041.